but in these two cases richard and erma and david and kati were blending different cultures as well as personalties. one of the cultural problems that we had to overcome... was the problem of interpreting body language. in ivory coast at least in her tribe, when you give something to somebody-- well, go ahead and give me something. okay, so you do it with this movement of the hand and then a "hmm." i interpreted that as her being angry at me. the most difficult cultural issues that i had to deal with as far as our marriage was prably getting used to the tight filipino family unit. the family goes everywhere together. i had to tell her, "is ere any other way that we can deal with this problem ?" i felt like there wasn't enough room for us to grow together. another one of the cross-cultural problems that we had had to do with silence. africans are surrounded by noise, by sound by people talking constantly. and inhe earlier years ourriage, would me home... and i would just be silent because i was tired of teaching and talking. through the years, these and other issues have been replaced..